Meet Carol & Bob Bridgestock - Crime Writers Extraordinaire!

Today we welcome authors Carol and Bob Bridgestock who work as co-authors under the name R C Bridgestock. They come to us from the Isle of Wight in England. These crime writers have a combined staggering 47 years of employment with the Police. Carol as a member of the Civilian Support staff and Bob as a Police Officer. Their first hand experience adds to the breadth and depth of their writing.

I understand your books have been republished recently.

Yes, our first book was ‘Deadly Focus’. This was first self-published in 2008 and received some fantastic reviews even from the best selling UK newspaper book reviewer. Having sold over 1500 we thought that we would try and get our second book published by a publisher without any cost to us and this would also give us some help with the marketing. I'm not sorry we did it this way first as it did give me a good insight into how hard marketing is and there is nothing like 'doing it yourself' to appreciate how hard those guys work!

The sequel, ‘Consequences’, was finished in November 2008 and so I sent it to an agent in London. She liked our work and we met for talks. She advised changes which we made and in spring 2010 she decided that the changes she advised didn't work and told us to send it to another agent or a publisher to see what feedback we got. As they say the rest is history.

The first publisher I sent it to was Caffeine Nights Publishing. They publish mainly crime fiction. It is a small company but the CEO is a crime writer himself. We were very privileged to be given a contract by him for ‘Consequences’. Since this was the sequel to ‘Deadly Focus’ (as well as a standalone book), he also asked if he could republish ‘Deadly Focus’ with some input from his team. We agreed. So in July 2010 we signed two contracts with them.

In May 2011 ‘Deadly Focus' was re published by Caffeine Nights with the full intention of 'Consequences' following soon after - to be honest we didn't know how much mileage there was left in Deadly Focus ... ! However, it went off like a rocket and WH Smiths Travel bought in which meant that as of July 2011 it was in 30 International Airports, Train stations and euro star in the UK. Our publishers thought it was best to hold back on 'Consequences' to let it run its course.

Now we are waiting for a hard copy of 'Consequences' which will be with us by early December and then it will go out to reviewers. It has already had one pre-publication review in August see TracyRiva.com.

Caffeine Nights has contracted the RC Bridgestock series featuring DI Jack Dylan and his partner, Jen.

Very exciting! Where can we find your books?

'Deadly Focus' is available through Amazon.co.uk and .com Amazon.co.uk and it is in ebook form, too. 'Consequences' has already been issued its ISBN numbers and covers. It will be available soon.

What advice do you have for other writers?

For book signings be prepared to become the market trader and sell. A lot of authors sit on the seat provided for them behind a desk, but you don't have to use it. Interact with the customers instead! Also, why not create your own display boards? An A5 sized board can be bought quite cheaply from stationary store. Cover the board with press cuttings, photos and advertisements of your book – even the price. These advertisement boards about you and your novel will build up in time and are well worth investing the effort as they ‘draw in’ the customer and is a good talking point.

Thank you Carol & Bob. To learn more about their writing you can visit them online at RCBridgestock.com.